I was going to entitle this post something boring like “My journey to level 90” but then I read today’s title for The Queue. All I ever hear and read is The Burning Crusade was the best, and Ulduar was epic, with everything ever since being derided as substandard to the awesomeness of the past. Everyone is different of course. I was talking with my old old guildmates yesterday and they said that they were very meh about the whole thing, that they were hoping once they got into raids they’d like it more.
Well I love Mists and Matt Rossi is my hero today for saying the same. I’m sure he’ll get flack for it. There is literally nothing I dislike about the expansion. There’s one or two slightly irritating parts, but that’s more because of my laziness, than because they are bad things. Like it would be more helpful if my gatherer had flying and levelling does take a while to get to 90. If I could buy the ability to fly account wide, once I’d done it once on the ground that would be nice, but I fully understand why they don’t want that. Questing is very different when you can fly, it’s more like checking items off a to do list rather than an adventure.
My Journey to 90
I started off the day of the 25th and did nothing much all day. I just couldn’t decide where to start. In my indecision I decided to cross something small off the list. So I actually did the pvp achievements City Defender, and Wrath of the Alliance. Odd choice given all the new content but I spent an hour or so corpse running to get those. I was then going to go do Halaa, for Battle Tokens, but my Horde paladin couldn’t even scratch the guards, so I’ll need to check regularly to see if Horde has it some other time to do that. I then messed about with Pet Battles for a bit. Late in the afternoon I got my head back in gear and went questing in Jade Forest on my main.
I’d decided before the expansion dropped that I would do Loremaster as I levelled. Perhaps this is why levelling took such a long time. It took a week but they were pretty full days of questing. I didn’t work out how many hours but a fair few I’d imagine. It’s unfair of me to compare this to Cata where I did the same. That took me 3 weeks but I played a lot less as I refused to play unless I had rested xp. I dinged 90 with the same quest turn in that got me the Townlong Steppes Loremaster achievement. This leaves just Dread Wastes left for Loremaster of Pandaria. I’d also done four dungeons, three Stormstout Brewery runs and one Jade Serpent.
I quested as Retribution as Protection hits like a wet sock these days. I’ve said this to a few people but I’m going to write it down for proof – they are going to nerf ret self healing. It’s ridiculous some of the things I’ve lived through, with Divine Purpose procs I can sometimes heal myself from near nothing to full health in just a few GCDs. I’d always quested as Prot before they changed how tank dps works recently, so I was worried about how I’d cope with the change in survivability. I was used to pulling loads of mobs at once and I didn’t think I’d be able to manage that as dps. Well I had no cause to be worried, my first corpse run was in Townlong Steppes. I completed the Jade Forest, Valley of Four Winds, Krasarang Wilds and Kun-Lai Summit loremaster achievements without dying. I also wasn’t particularly careful about my pulls, which caused some swearing when I had like 6+ mobs trying to kill me. I did die to one rare in Kun-Lai but I don’t count that as rares are a bit like bosses, and not general questing mobs.
As soon as I hit level 89 I queued for Brewfest. I don’t know why as it’s not like I need the extra mount runs, already being blessed with both courtesy of account wide mounts, I probably did it because I could. I queued as tank as I always do in instances and I am very lucky I got a geared level 90 healer. Direbew hits like a truck. It was very messy but we did kill him and I won’t return and kill me until I’m geared, honestly it was like three hits and I was nearly dead. True I was wearing my level 85 gear, as I figured tank gear would be better than my upgraded ret set, but I wasn’t expecting it to be anywhere near as hard as it was. I tried running it later that day with a friend of mine tanking and we wiped twice before giving up. I had wondered if maybe it was just that I’d forgotten how to tank. Being Prot all the time everywhere did have it’s advantages, I didn’t mis-remember where any of my buttons were. I was pressing a button on my new mouse (I got a Razer Naga recently) for self healing only to realise that’s bound to a different ability on Prot. Anyway, my friend had real trouble too so it wasn’t just me.
What I did after hitting 90
I went back to the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. I’d opened it up earlier with the quest chain in Kun-Lai, having a portal place again is very useful, though the Deeprun Tram might miss me. I got all the quests there and did a few quests for the Golden Lotus. Then I decided to go check out my farm so I did that and the Tiller’s dailies. After that I decided to go see The Anglers before I headed up to Jade Forest for the Order of the Cloud Serpent. I went back today and I thought, after picking the hatchling yesterday, that some of the quests might be to do with that. Well they weren’t today but I guess it’s possible at a higher reputation level. I was missing three daily quests for the achievement Every day I’m Pand-a-ren so I headed back for the Golden Lotus to get that achievement.
Where I go from here?
I’m just considering that very thing. I had hoped that when I got to level 90 everything would become clear and a path would emerge. That hasn’t happened I still want to do everything at once. That’s why I love this expansion so much there is such a lot to do. I remember after I’d levelled my character in Cata, and run into the brick wall that was early heroics. There was a few daily quests for reputation but once I did those, and I finished them fairly quickly as I did the dailies every day, there wasn’t anything to do. There was no compelling reason to log on every day.
Now maybe I’m overstating it after all Mists has only been out a week so there is bound to be a lot to do. However, with the friendship reputations as well there’s a lot more factions to get to exalted. There’s also the new features of Scenario’s, Challenge Modes, Pet Battles and Farming. I’m also in a different position than I was at the start of Cata, so it might be unfair to compare the two. However, now I’ve got all the professions to level and more alts to play. I went into Cata with one max level character and three alts none of which were close to max, I went into Mists with nine max level and four which were five levels from max.
Anyway the first thing I’m going to finish off is the Dread Wastes for Loremaster. That way I can stamp done on the zones, plus get all the reputation from them that is possible. Then I should work on my gatherer and start levelling professions but I’ll probably work on getting towards exalted with The Lorewalkers as I absolutely love the mount – Disc of the Red Flying Cloud – that’s available at exalted. Then I’ll level my cooking and maybe go park all my alts in Halfhill, get a little army going growing me mats for my cooking. I won’t be able to work one expanding any farm but my mains until I level them, but four plots multiplied by nine is a lot better than just four. Then I really should go on my gatherer but I think I’ll go respec Arms. I want to play my Warrior, I love the changes to rage especially but I don’t have a scooby how to play Fury. I thought that would be fun to dual wield – something I can’t do on my paladin – but I can’t do it on my warrior either as I don’t know what I’m doing. I’d be better as Prot but tanking specs, aside from Death Knights, are so weak on the dps front these days.
Shutting up now
These last couple of posts have been quite personal, my experiences in the new land and all that. I will try and go back to proper posts from now on, as opposed to “Wow I love this so much, this is so cool!” which is what’s running through my mind. Blogging on this is kinda taking a backseat, as playing the game is a lot more fun than talking about the game. Plus I’m working on getting my new guild up and running, and the site for that, and other such stuff. I do absolutely love Mists of Pandaria though, in case I haven’t made that clear.